Shining hope for her son with Down syndrome

I FIRST saw her in December, a month before my son was born. Hunched over my swollen belly, I waited in my car for a green light. What about her turned my head? Not her beauty. She sat on the bus stop curb, stocky in winter layers, mouth a grim rectangle. I liked the way her neck rested right on her shoulders, the planted look this gave her. I liked her jutting chin and how she stared, unblinking, into the traffic while not smoking the lighted cigarette in her gloved hand. A slight blankness to her expression made it seem that a daydream -- no doubt compensatory, probably romantic -- had pulled her inward, away from her own solid body and the cold. With a stab, I remembered having such daydreams as a young woman, those needs I had then, needs that over the years I've not so much filled as lost track of.

By Karen Sosnoski

August 11, 2008